Captain Steven Khoo has been a pilot with Singapore Airlines (SIA) for almost 40 years. He has also spent over 6 years as a Human Factors and Safety Manager with SIA. During which he has networked with Human Factors specialists, and explored the application of Human Factors to understand how the weakest link could be the strongest by understanding the findings from the accidents and incidents in aviation that have highlighted factors such as fatigue, workload, fear, and cognitive overload as some of the probable contributory factors.

Presentation Synopsis
Flying Safe: What Aviation Does to Assure This – The Lessons for Medicine
Flying – everyday, someone is flying: some over relatively short distances; others, cross continents and time zones. While some may harbour fear of flying, most feel safe. As a pilot, I am responsible for assuring the safety of my passengers and crew. Each time I take control of my plane, I am assured that barring bad weather, the flight will be uneventful. Based on data provided by the International Air Traffic Association (IATA), air accident rate is at an all-time low of 2.6 accidents per million departures.

The civil aviation industry has come a long way from its early days when flying was highly hazardous, and air crashes resulting in heavy losses of lives and planes were not uncommon. The high levels of safety and passengers’ trust in flying safe is the result of the concerted efforts of all members of the industry.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, is the key driver in assuring aviation safety. The ICAO sets the standards and recommended best practices for aviation safety through its “Safety Management System” (SMS). The SMS must be adopted, and practiced, as a mandatory requirement for issue of the Air Operators Certificate. Under the SMS, ALL personnel at ALL levels of the organisation are responsible and accountable for safety. The SMS’ Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) process has to be in place and applied to develop mitigation strategies to bring risk exposure with potential adverse impact on safety to an acceptable level that is pragmatic and sustainable.

The practice of Medicine has also come a long way since its early days. Like aviation, Medicine is highly complex, and fraught with uncertainties, except that it is much, much more heterogeneous. Like inflight passengers, safety for patients undergoing treatment depends heavily on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the personnel attending to them. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines the standards and recommended best practices for assuring patient safety.

Would the lessons learnt by the aviation industry in dealing with its darkest safety events in the past and its current efforts at further enhancing safety in the face of technological advancement and rising public and staff expectations be of value to my counterparts in Medicine as they pursue Target Zero Harm for patients?